Realization
by elevenblue
Summary: Over the years, Fate comes to understand her feelings as jealousy. But if she is jealous, then what does it mean?


**Ten year old Nanoha**

**Ten year old Fate**

"Come on, sleepyhead! You'd better hurry or we'll be late for class."

Confused, a sleepy Fate slowly opened her eyes to find Nanoha' face hovering over hers with a bright smile.

"Nanoha? What are you doing here?" It wasn't very usual for her blue-eyed friend to be there in the morning, since it was generally Fate who went to Nanoha's house to go to school together.

"You had a mission last night, so I thought it'd be better to let you sleep a little longer and come here instead of making you wake up early and go to my house." Nanona smiled confidently, but Fate still couldn't understand one little detail.

"But the alarm clock… I'm sure I set it last night." The blonde furrowed her brows, which earned a giggle from her friend.

"Well, it was easy enough to get Arf-san to agree with my little plan." Nanoha winked, and now that everything made sense in her head, Fate finally showed a big smile. "Thanks, Nanoha. I appreciate it." Her morning had been off to a great start, and Fate still couldn't believe how lucky she was to have a friend as considerate as Nanoha. It never failed to amaze her how the other girl was always taking care of her, thinking of ways to make her smile.

"Shall we go have some breakfast then? Admiral Lindy, Chrono-kun and Arf-san are waiting for us."

"Sure. Just give me a few minutes to wash myself and I'll be there with you guys."

"Okay. Don't take too long, Fate-chan," Nanoha said with a small wave and left the bedroom. Fate then proceeded to stretch to get her still somewhat sleepy body to fully wake up.

When she was going down the stairs, she heard her mom's voice and it had an undeniably teasing tone.

"Say, Nanoha-chan, what are your intentions with my little daughter? You know, she's still too young to be alone with a visitor in her bedroom." Before the brunette could answer, Fate walked in fast. "MOM!" She yelled with her fists clenched and her face completely red.

"Ah, honey, you're finally here! Come, take a seat. And stop looking at me like that. I'm sure Nanoha-chan doesn't mind a little innocent teasing," she said smiling at the latter.

"No, ma'am, I don't mind it at all," the brunette answered cheerily, grabbing a piece of toast.

"Nanoha clearly doesn't mind it, but unfortunately the same can't be said about my little sister." Chrono smirked, looking at a still very red-faced Fate. Everybody laughed, and only Arf seemed to sympathize a little with the blonde, handing her the milk.

"Ugh. You guys are the worst," Fate groaned, but she was internally happy that now her mornings could always be so lively and filled with laughter. Thanks to all of those amazing people, loneliness was a feeling that belonged to a remote past.

Half an hour later, Fate and Nanoha were leaving the house and heading to school. After taking just a few steps, the brunette grabbed her friend's hand, causing Fate to smile warmly at her. They would usually walk to school hand in hand, but every time Nanoha initiated the contact, the blonde would always feel a little dazed. First of all, she loved the feeling of not being alone anymore, of having someone that close to her. Second, well, it was Nanoha, and she was immensely proud to hold the hand of one of the strongest mages of the universe. And then, again, it was Nanoha, and only the blue-eyed girl could make Fate feel her heart fluttering. She supposed it meant their friendship was a very strong one.

"Hey, idiot couple over there! Too busy with the PDA to greet us? Idiots!" Alisa's voice startled them a little, since they had been too entertained talking to each other to notice they had arrived to the corner where they'd meet with their friends.

"Now now, Alisa-chan, don't bother them so early in the morning," Suzuka intervened, smiling gently at Nanoha and Fate.

"Hey, Fate-chan, how did it go last night?" Hayate asked, referring to the mission Fate had gone on.

"Fortunately, everything went just fine." She smiled, noticing from the corner of her eye how Nanoha was inspecting her arms for any injury for the third time that morning.

"Did Signum behave well?"

"She was of great help like always."

"Well, I'm raising her to be a good child," Hayate smirked, making the others laugh. It was always funny to think of Signum as a child being raised by Hayate, but they knew her loyalty to her master would actually make her behave according to Hayate's liking.

"I suppose we should get in then," Nanoha sighed, looking at the school gates.

"Why so dreadful, Nanoha-chan?" Hayate asked, thought she knew the reason perfectly well.

"P.E. evaluation. Ugh, I'm going to be the worst in the class," the brunette groaned, hiding her face in Fate's shoulder.

"I'll never understand how you can save the world, just go boom on everything evil and still fail to do well in PE," said Alisa furrowing her brow.

"Maybe if we had some king of shooting competition, Nanoha would be able to do better, right?" Suzuka smiled trying to increase her friend's self-esteem.

"Nanoha, be my pair. I'm sure the both of us can get a decent score," Fate suggested, since the evaluation considered not only individual results, but also results you got as a pair and as a team.

"Eh? No way, Fate-chan! You can get much higher scores if you pair with someone else," Nanoha refused blushing, feeling panicked by the possibility of standing in her friend's way.

"If you pair with Suzuka, you'll probably conquer the world or something," Hayate agreed with a nod.

"I'm serious, Nanoha. Come on, haven't our superiors always said we make a great team on the battle field? Let's show everybody we can do great here too," Fate said with a warm smile, offering her hand to Nanoha.

"Ugh, Fate-chan, that's so embarrassing," Nanoha sighed, but accepted her friend's hand anyway. She could protest all she wanted, but she knew her friends could see right through her and were able to see she was quite happy to pair with Fate. After all, the girl was amazing in P.E.

"Everything's settled then! Let's go!" Suzuka started walking, but suddenly stopped and looked at Fate over her shoulder. "However, you know you could never beat me, right, Fate-chan?" Her voice was sweet, but it was easy to see a competitive and challenging look in her eyes.

"We'll see, Suzuka. Bring it on, bring it on." Fate smiled accepting the challenge, and with Hayate and Alisa whistling lowly, the five entered the school.

Fate had just finished taking a shower and was now by her locker, organizing her backpack. She now felt refreshed after breaking quite a sweat, but her muscles had enjoyed the activity. It wasn't a surprise that she and Suzuka had come to a draw in their results, with her winning some categories such as racing and her purple-haired friend winning other such as shot put. As to Nanoha, while her results weren't all that good, they were definitely better when compared to her last evaluation. She did best in the pair and team results, and Fate was under the impression that she had tried harder because she had wanted to keep up with her. The blonde didn't know if it was out of a competitive edge or out of a desire not to hold her back, but she was happy anyway.

"Fate-chan, are you ready to go home?" Nanoha pulled her out of her thoughts, appearing beside her with her backpack hanging from her shoulder.

"Ah, yes. What about Suzuka, Alisa and Hayate?" The blonde asked while picking up her own backpack and heading to the doors.

"Hayate-chan has gone already because she had to pick up Vita-chan in the golf court, and Alisa-chan and Suzuka-chan are going to stay because they have tennis practice today."

"Okay. Just the both of us then." Fate smiled at her friend, and they made their way home talking happily to each other.

When they were almost reaching Nanoha's house, Fate remembered something and turned to her friend. "Hey Nanoha, tomorrow we're going to have a movie night at my place. Mom is going to make us some popcorn, Chrono is going to pick some movies and I think Amy will also join us. Do you want to come? You can sleepover afterwards, of course."

"Sorry, Fate-chan, I can't." The look on Nanoha's face showed that the girl was really sorry. "I mean, I really wanted to, but Yuuno-kun is coming to visit and I promised I would spend some time with him. I'm really sorry, Fate-chan."

Fate swallowed, not knowing exactly why she felt so disappointed. Suddenly, she just wanted to leave Nanoha safe at her door and get away from there as fast as possible. "No problem," was all that she managed to say, and she increased their pace, making them soon arrive at Nanoha's house.

"Thanks for walking me home, Fate-chan, but… are you okay? You look a little troubled." Nanoha was watching her friend with a worried look in her face, obviously concerned and oblivious to what had suddenly left her like that.

"Yes. I'm going to hurry up, Arf is probably waiting for me so we can… walk. Play. You know, dog and girl. Yes." Fate blubbered, still feeling uncomfortable and, for the first time after becoming Nanoha's friend, wanting to be alone.

"Ah… okay. Take care, then. Text me when you get home, ok? And have fun tomorrow at the movie night," Nanoha smiled a little hesitant, but all Fate could do was smile and walk away.

She knew she should have wished Nanoha a good night too, or at least told her to say hi to Yuuno, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had been so used to being with Nanoha almost every day, to talking to her every day, that she had forgotten she had other things to do with her time. Hayate, Suzuka and Alisa weren't her only friends, and so she couldn't be with her all the time. She just wasn't prepared to feel that lonely by being refused by Nanoha. Fate kind of felt like the brunette was choosing Yuuno's company over hers, and though she knew it probably wasn't really like that, she still felt hurt and sad. She knew she was being irrational, she knew she was being selfish, but she couldn't help it. She just felt lost. She had grown too attached to her best friend, and even though she knew she'd go back home to find her family gently smiling at her, she had the feeling that the loneliness would not leave her completely for the next few days.

**AN: **Hello, guys! Let me know what you think, your suggestions and all.

If you have any observation to make about the language, grammar or spelling, please do it. English is not my first language, so I'll probably have a few things to fix.

Thanks for reading (=

Ah! In case anyone's wondering, yes, this story will have multiple chapters showing the girls with different ages.


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